After quite the roller coast we've arrived at the last race of the 2016 F1 season. Rosberg is looking to claim his first Driver's Championship, Hamilton is looking to play spoiler like he did for his first Driver's Championship. He's done all that he can do, starting from the US GP where he's taken pole and the checkered flag for three races in a row. He's now down by 12 points so he'll not only need to win, but Rosberg will need to finish 4th or lower. On the converse Rosberg has plenty of ways he can clench; if he were so incline to pull a Senna on Prost (please don't) he could win with a double DNF. Rosberg won most of these races that Hams has won at the end of the season, last year, so he knows what to do at Yas Marina. Hamilton has been super focused and has answered every threat Rosberg has thrown at him over the past few weeks and has sorted out his GP starting woes. In other news Gutierrez may be without a ride next year so he'll be trying to put his best foot forward. Massa will driving for the final time before retiring from the sport, and Jenson Button will be stepping away from the drivers seat next season so the jury is still out on whether or not he'll return in a future season like he currently states. Hulkenburg will drive his Force India for the last time before moving on to Renault. There will be fireworks in Abu Dhabi no matter what happens, should be a great one and should cleanse the palette from the rain-soaked cluster that was most of the Brazilian Grand Prix (before Verstappen made the field overtaking run of legends to finish 3rd).

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Check out these tech updates due on next year's VW Golf line up; it appears like we'll get all of these goodies in the states and I'm most looking forward to the new LEDs. Getting all the engine options will be nice, too, but I think I'll be hunting down that performance pack GTI in a year or so. Short vid first and a full presentation second.

The last few races of the season have been crazy, with Hams figuring out his launch method and taking Pole to Checkered flag twice, but Mexico was crazy for more reasons than the Driver's Championship. Controversy abounded, with Vettel chasing down Verstappen late in the race with fresher tires; Verstappen locked up and went through the grass, after the ultra high speed ending turn 1, exiting ahead of Vettel out of the grass and not yeilding the spot despite most folks on the wall thinking he gained an advantage. The Verstappen stayed in front of Vettel and had too much pace for Vettel to get by, and Ricciardo caught up to Vettel in the melee but was unable to make the move stick. Getting back to the Verstappen course cut, there wasn't an announcement from the stewards until another lap went by and it stated that they would figure it out after the race concluded, which didn't make a lot of sense. Scuderia pit wall was livid, only superseded by Vettel cursing FIA Director Charlie Whiting, also cursing Verstappen and everyone else involved. The top three finishers, Hams, Rosberg and Verstappen all park and go into the waiting room and suddenly the stewards announce that Verstappen was assessed a 5sec penalty which effectively moved him from 3rd to 5th because of the Red Bull sammich Vettel was in at the finish. Then the cameras shift and through the crowd of fans in front of the podium comes Vettel, escorted by his entire team, while Verstappen gets the news and is asked to leave by the FIA official. Then after the race and interviews were long over, the stewards decided on a 10sec penalty for Vettel for driving erratically in defense of Ricciardo's advances, resulting of Max running slower than Vettel but doing his best to maintain position. This pushed Ricciardo into 3rd for the race. Seems odd because Verstappen is the one who put Vettel in that position, but in the end Verstappen finished ahead of Vettel, in 4th. Possibly the most eventful and colorful race of this season; radio sound bites for days.

With the smoke cleared after the checkered flag the current Driver's standings are as follows: Rosberg, Hamilton (-19), Ricciardo (-107), Vettel (-162), Raikkonen (-171), Verstappen (-172). Brazil should be another tight battle; there's just about no way to pass an evenly matched car at Interlagos, which if you remember last year is what kept Hamilton from getting past Nico in the final laps. If Rosberg keeps coming in second with Hams winning he'll still win the championship by 5pts; he'll need Red Bull to bring it in the last two races after he gets out to the lead. Qualy will be a big deal in Brazil.

F1 action returns to Austin Tx and Haas F1 will have their first home Grand Prix. Where we last left off at Suzuka, Hamilton again bungled the start and fought his way back to finish third behind Max Verstappen - he's now 33 points down. Nico is going to have to do something amazingly bad to lose this Driver's Championship, but it ain't over 'til it's over as they say. Despite Ferrari having a better outing than Red Bull over all, Seb and Kimi finishing 4-5, Verstappen held onto P2 despite the advances of a desperate Hamilton; this consistency has now tied him in 5th in the Driver's Championship with Vettel. Force india out-duked Williams again, with Checo and Hulk finishing 7-8. This will Hulks last season with Force India as he's signed to drive for the Renault factory team in 2017. Despite decent running as of late McLaren couldn't put it together for the home fans, Alonso and Button finishing 16-18. Congrats to Petronas Mercedes AMG for clenching the Constructors Championship for the third time in a row, completely dominating this hybrid-turbo era.The current standings are as follows: Rosberg, Hamilton (-33), Ricciardo (-101), Raikkonen (-143), Verstappen (-148), Vettel (-148). COTA is one of Hamilton's favorite tracks, and he loves the states, so if he's going to get back on track it'll be this weekend. Conversely, Nico could put the proverbial nail in Hamilton's coffin if he takes another checkered flag -- the US GP should be quite significant.

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

Petrolicious brings us a great feature on Porsche 964 enthusiast, Hans-Michael Gerischer, and his evolution from a 964 owner into a gentleman racer capable of getting the most out of his car on the road and track.

We have an exciting week ahead with the 2016 F1 season's 5th to last race. The last race in Malaysia was entertaining, but disappointing at the same time. Entertaining due to the great racing action on this repaved circuit, the storyline changes and a major victory for Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo, but disappointing due to the DNF's across the field -- notably Vettel on lap 1, after spinning Rosberg and breaking his front left suspension, and Hams around lap 43 resulting from a surprise engine failure which overshadowed his dominant pole position on Saturday. This lead to multiple outcomes; Red Bull has pulled away from Ferrari in the Manufacturers Championship, Raikkonen (finished 4th) jumped Vettel in the Driver's Championship again, Nico now has a 23pt lead over Hamilton and Petronas Mercedes AMG missed out on the opportunity to clinch the Manufacturers Championship in Malaysia, home of Petronas. Nico did a great job making up positions after getting clipped by Vettel on turn 1, to finish in third position despite a 10 second penalty for a optimistic move on Raikkonen late in the race. Ricciardo held off the advances of young Max to lead a Red Bull 1-2 capped off by a champagne boot celebration by the entire podium. McLaren had another good outing scoring points with both drivers, Button scoring points in his 300th GP. With the checkered flag dropped, the Driver's Championship standings are as follows: Rosberg, Hamilton (-23), Ricciardo (-84), Raikkonen (-128), Vettel (-135), Verstappen (-142). Suzuka is a technical track which will favor Red Bull's aero package so it should be another great fight up front. Mercedes has reliability issues to address, after a relatively solid year in that regard; we'll see how it shakes out, including McLaren's updates for Honda's home GP.

We have a loaded motorsport weekend to look forward to this weekend, with the WeatherTech Sports Car Championship finale, the Petite Le Mans from Road Atlanta, V8 Supercars action, WRC action, Monaco Historic GP coverage from earlier this summer and the F1 2016 season continues in Malaysia.

Where we last left off, it was hot and muggy in Singapore two weeks ago. Hams was holding on to the championship lead with his fingernails, and Mercedes was looking forward to trying to rectify the mysterious problems they had last year in SG, where Nico finished off the podium and Hams DNF'd. This year Mercedes seemed to have figured out how to work with the 2016 Pirelli compounds, living towards the top of the order all weekend. Ferrari got the win last year and looked to repeat if possible, and Red Bull was looking for an initial win of the season. Qualifying was a good sign of what was to come in the race; Nico was the fastest, followed by Ricciardo and Hamilton, who struggled a bit with some of consistency in some of the technical sections. Vettel had to start from the back as he suffered a broken rear suspension in Q1 which forced him to retire. Given his ability to chose his fate, he switched power units (negated penalty since he was in the back in the first place) and started on the Softs to get the longest first stint possible. The race start was eventful for all the wrong reasons; Nico Hulkenberg was clipped during a quick start, attempting to split the two Toro Rosso's, resulting in a broken rear suspension. The collateral damage was extensive as the activity resulted in some broken front wings, punctures and other damage, which made the initial trip through the pits for the entire field a mandatory pit stop area for some. From that point forward it was a tire strategy exercise. Rosberg was in clean air so things didn't really get interesting for him until late in the race. Both Mercs were dealing with brake temp issues, and the other front runners worked to exploit that where ever possible. The initial idea for Mercedes was to run a two stopper UltraS-Soft-Soft and Red Bull were to run SSoft-SSoft-Soft or similar. As the race developed however, with the brake issues rearing their head, Ham's was passed by Raikkonen on track while trying to get a new strategy from the team, but he didn't get a new strategy until relatively late; instead of going two stop, Hams and Ricciardo went onto SSofts with about 17 laps to go, which changes the dynamic of the two stop strategy completely. Raikkonen pitted shortly afterward for UltraS's which painted the final laps as ones where Ricciardo, Hams and Raikkonen would be up Rosbergs' transaxle. Due to the pit delta and other factors, and the slow reaction by Rosberg's pit, he stayed out on the Softs and Daniel got within a half second of him on the final lap. The strategy Red Bull employed (and Hams' pit in reaction), almost paid off, but it wasn't quite enough. Perez finished in 8th, doing Sahara Force India's constructor's points well despite Hulkenberg's retirement on Lap 1. Button DNF'd, but Alonso finished 7th for Mclaren's sake. Verstappen recovered from a bad start in 4th, and a near miss with Hulkenberg's quick trip into the wall, to finish in 6th.

With the checkered flag dropped, the top three finished in the order they started, followed by the Ferrari's of Raikkonen and Vettel, respectively. The current Driver's standing are as follows: Rosberg, Hamilton (-8), Ricciardo (-94), Vettel (-120), Raikkonen (-125), Verstappen (-144). Malaysia should be another good one; if teams and drivers want to make an impact it'll have to happen now.

Great weekend ahead with F1, IMSA sports car racing and WEC in Austin. Where we last left off, Hams had the worst start of the season and went from P1 to about P7 by turn one at Monza, then spent the rest of the race playing catch up. And of course for him to be P1 he had to take pole; and how. Nico got gapped by over by half a second on supersofts. Ferrari's latest power upgrades separated them from Red Bull as Monza is a power track. Bottas and Williams were the fastest in the traps and Force India had another strong outing with overall pace. The Tifosi were in full force, Kimi and Vettel worked quite hard to put on a good showing at home; unfortunately they came together once again, on turn one, with Verstappen was in the mix. It wasn't Verstappen's fault, despite a last second dash to the inside, putting them three wide. Vettel pinched Kimi, they came together, carbon fiber flew and Verstappen had to get his front wing changed. Tire strategy was king in Italy, per precedent, with many folks getting very solid performance out of the softs and this lead to folks either going with a one or two stop strategy. The Mercs went one stop (softs, mediums), including of the mid teams, but Ferrari went two stop, running the supersofts on two stints. With all said, Ferrari snagged 3rd and 4th at Monza, with all of the tifosi and Ferrari management present, which was about all they could do outside of technical difficulties for Mercedes. Red Bull's Ricciardo took 5th with William's Bottas in 6th. Hamilton wasn't pleased, post-race, knowing he botched the start and it cost him cushion in the championship, but more interestingly was that Hamilton both took blame and blamed the team for the bad race start over the course of the afternoon.

With the checkered flag dropped, Nico took the race win lead (7-6) over Hams and has drawn within 2pts of the aforementioned points leader. The current Driver's Championship standings are as follows: Hamilton, Rosberg (-2), Ricciardo (-89), Vettel (-107), Raikkonen (-114), Verstappen (-129). Singapore is going to be a hot one and pole will be key; Red Bull is looking to make a mark as it's not a power track; mechanical grip and aero are king and Ricciardo wants to finally get a GP win under his belt. Verstappen needs to ensure he respects the fixed walls of street tracks. Hamilton needs to work out his start sequence kinks or else he's going to trail Rosberg again. Ferrari has no more engine tokens so if they swap again they'll be penalized grid positions; Mercedes showed the best way to work around that at Spa. Perhaps they'll follow suit.

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

One of my longest standing car enthusiast friends (going back to 2001) turned me on to this project built series, a few weeks ago, when I was getting my MK3 Golf serviced at his shop first time in years (more to come on that in a post sooner than later). I love quality car builds and this one is quite unique; Austin Mini, with the all-wheel drive, turbo charged power train from a Group B homologation special -- the Toyota Celica GT4 All-Trac. If you've followed this build already, great. If you haven't, try not to skip too far into the future as it's still going on currently.

F1 is back, Hams is coming off a 5/6 winning run and Rosberg has to get back any chance of competing this weekend. Although Lewis is running out of Engines, so there's still a chance of this staying competitive. Meanwhile Red Bull is looking mighty strong and Ferrari is flailing. We'll see what Ferrari has done to rectify the situation with performance and lack of Technical Director, this weekend. Most of the driver seats are set next year, including those of Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull. Williams and Renault are in question, especially with the unknown future of Sahara Force India's owner and it's team and talented drivers. There will also be no halo driver protection in effect, although discussed for 2017; the updates to regulations are in this week's vid. We'll have two F1 races back to back, starting at legendary Spa Francorchamps and finishing at...legendary Monza. Legend on legend crime, baby.

This weekend is chock full of mospo action, from rally to open wheel to @harrismonkey. Last weekend in Hungary was somewhat predictable, from the podium perspective, but there was plenty of great action throughout the top 10. Verstappen and Kimi went at it, Vettel and Ricciardo did the same and Rosberg and Hamilton duked it out as well. Alonso finished in the points again, taking P7 in all sessions. The rain rolled in and lead to some interesting results during qualifying; actually Q1 took about an hour due to rain delays. The number of folks smacking into walls due to misjudging water on the track was only out done by some of the greatest WOT-slicks-on-water saves rolling on to the straight, from turn 14, that we've seen this season. Red Bull is still fast and Ricciardo snatched 3rd for Red Bull, and 3rd in the Driver's Championship (DC). Raikkonen's poor qualy was rectified during the race, but was capped by an unpassable Verstappen. The ream radio rules were amended. Rosberg got a questionable Pole in qualy under a yellow flag, edging out Hams; Hams got the last laugh, taking the checkered flag and the DC lead, despite having trouble keeping pace on the softs. With the smoke cleared the championship standings are as follows: Hamilton, Rosberg (-6), Ricciardo (-77), Raikkonen (-78), Vettel (-82), Verstappen (-92). The best of the rest is tighter than ever and Ferrari is feeling the pressure, and to make matters worse, they've lost their technical director, well known aerodynamicist James Allison, this week. Rosberg signed a new contract, so the top 6 drivers here will be in their same cars next year. Red Bull may want to reconsider the engine venture next season, because Renault is doing some great work for them; oh I'm sorry TAG is doing some great work for them. Now we're back in Germany where Nico is strong and is looking to take his lead back. Should be another good one.

Eff you Tour de France; last race it lead to some crap F1 coverage and we're in the same boat again this weekend, with P2 not being aired live on the NBC networks. It's hard to bash solely NBC though, FOX effed up F1 coverage when they were handling it years back, too. But I digress; where we last left off, Rosberg was looking to get back into the swing of things heading into one of Lewis' favorite circuits, his home circuit @ Silverstone. Well as we all suspected, that didn't happen. What we didn't know was going to happen is that Red Bull has officially eclipsed Ferrari in pace, and Vettel is having some pretty terrible luck to go along with errors in strategy through this point. Random British weather was the name of the game, affecting both qualy and the race. Rain in Q3 lead to one of the more exciting knockout sessions of the year, with the top ten being determined by flyers as the track dried out. Some jumped on slicks too early and paid the price; the same would come into play during the race, which started in the rain behind the safety car. Young Verstappen finished both qualy and the race in third position, but due to Rosberg getting bailed out by his team over the radio late in the race, his 10 second time penalty put Max in second. This is pretty important, because this drop in points for Rosberg affects the drivers championship standings. Verstappen has been damn good this season and since joining the varsity Red Bull team he's accomplished quite a bit, which Ricciardo will need to keep his eyes on. Raikkonen resigned with Ferrari, Ricciardo made his intentions clear about staying with Red Bull; Rosberg is in a contract year. With the checkered flag dropped, the Driver's Championship standings are as follows: Rosberg, Hamilton (-1), Raikkonen (-62), Ricciardo (-68), Vettel (-70), Verstappen (-78). Ricciardo's consistency has brought him up to fourth, Vettel has dropped out of the top three and Raikkonen's consistency has brought him ahead of his 'Number 1 at Ferrari' teammate. Hungary should be entertaining.

Top Gear UK Season 23 ends and Chris Evans leaves the show, capping off the swirling rumors of his need for control and Matt LeBlanc not wanting to work with him. After watching the new season and seeing Chris Harris kill it with his short films, I remembered that he could do a show on his own filled with sweet car reviews and wished he would return to the interwebs. Then I saw an advert for Chris Harris On Cars the TV show airing next Monday @ 9pm on BBC America. Glad he's back to giving the people what they want. Back to Top Gear UK, though, it was rough to start, but episode 6 was decent, despite it being a collection of solo-acts until the final presenters showdown. Word is they'll be looking for a more subtle and witty lead Brit for season 24, to bring the ratings back up, but it will take seasons to build the fans back up again. Top Gear was it's presenters, not the production, but I hope it turns around as the world needs more car shows. That said, I'm looking forward to The Grand Tour.

We have F1 races, back to back, twice this month (!) so we're back at em' after that nutty ending in Austria that left the locals booing Hams on the top step for really no reason other than loving their neighbor-ish countryman, German driver Rosberg, despite him going out of his way to wreck Hams rather then be passed on the last lap. Rosberg is officially holding onto his Championship hopes with his fingernails and he'll be passed before long if this is his only tactic. If Toto and Nikki want to enforce team rules because Rosberg likes aggressively defending Hamilton's advances, with less than desirable results, then this will eventually turn into Hamilton getting the team order nod(s) when he more than likely takes over the Driver's Championship points lead in another few weeks. We'll see how this plays out this weekend at Silverstone. To recap; rain made qualifying more than interesting, controversial curbing updates and four cars with broken rear suspension prior to the race. Jenson Button starts 3rd for the first time since 2014 (qualy'd 5th), then finished 6th. Both Toro Rosso's DNF'd, Force India is still fast and Hulkenberg qualified 3rd. Ferrari is still fast, but a tire strategy gamble the team put Vettel on lead to a spectacular shredded right-rear supersoft, ping-pong, DNF. Vettel, much like the last time this happened (@ Spa last Summer), Pirelli was thrown under the bus. Perez had a brake failure on the last lap of the race that put him in the wall, for a gutting DNF, but this lead to Wehrlein getting a single point for Manor; he also put the Manor into Q2 with a strong outing and was generally quick all weekend. Speaking of benefiting off the error of others, Rosberg's destruction of his front wing lead to Verstappen snagging 2nd and Raikkonen 3rd, rounding out the podium. Kimi is supposedly racing for his job (sound familiar?), so he held the Ferrari torch for the weekend; and coincidentally he's now tied with Vettel in the Driver's Championship. Verstappen went on a one stop strategy to leap frog his teammate and used his old softs to hold off Kimi through the checkered flag. Alonso DNF'd due to mechanical failure late, again. Haas is still scoring points and the team now has 28, just behind McLaren Mercedes. With the smoke clear the Driver's Championship standing are as follows: Rosberg, Hamilton (-11), Vettel (-57), Raikkonen (-57), Ricciardo (-65), Verstappen (-81). This weekend in England should be another entertaining race.

We gots a great few days of motorsport ahead, but more importantly Independence Day here in the States. Look forward to the 6hrs of the Glen, Pirelli World Challenge, WRC, Top Gear, new eps of the regulars and F1 returns to Austria. Last go around, Nico got back to his winning ways, Vettel and Ferrari is still strong, but not quite on the level of the silver arrows, and Force India is turning into the surprise team of the season with Checo taking 3rd place for two races in a row. Hamilton's woes seem to be back, the tight street track of Baku catching him out on multiple occasions during the weekend. He started 10th due to issues during Q3 and finished 5th in the race primarily due to some settings glitch that had his Mercedes short on power for several laps. Ricciardo and Verstappen of Redbull may have pitted too early on the supersofts and fell victim to the one stop strategy of the majority of other front runners. Baku retired several cars and multiple people put their car in the concrete walls throughout the weekend, but was seen as positive by most of the paddock. With the smoke clear the Driver's Championship standings are as follows: Rosberg, Hamilton (-24), Vettel (-46), Raikkonen (-60), Ricciardo (-63), Verstappen (-87). Austria should be a race to see.

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

The Petro gang bring us a short film on a '57 Aston Martin MKIII Prototype owned by Dave Adams. This car has quite the storied history, being not only the design basis for future models but also competing in the Monte Carlo Rally. He believes this car is both good and terrible, like sexual chocolate.

Great weekend ahead with the 84th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans race through Circuit de Sarthe. We have all of the usual suspects along side Ford Racing and the all new Ford GT LM car, which I've been wanting to get a better look at all year. Porsche is coming off a strong 1-2 finish in 2015 and Audi wasn't to reclaim the throne. Toyota ran into some reliability issues late and they to want another good showing. Nissan is waiting in the wings too, with the GTR-LM. LMP1 has got story lines out the wazoo. Fox has expanded their coverage over last year, but FS2 is still barely available in the mid-atlantic. Thankfully the FS1 coverage is solid on the start and finish side of things.

We also have another F1 race, coming right off the Canadian Grand Prix at Gilles Villeneuve Circuit. Last week Ham took a second win in a row after taking pole, but the race start wasn't ideal. The wall of champions sucked a few more cars in over the weekend. Sainz makes up for hitting the wall with a good showing on race day. Verstappen is back to form, making Nico look
desperate. Vettel (2nd) is looking strong yet again, while the Mercedes boys
may need to revisit the clutch mechanism for starts. Watch out for those seagulls, man. Bottas hit the podium
in 3rd for the first time in a while; the Williams benefiting from its
suitability to the power track of Canada. With the checkered flag dropped the Driver's standings are as follows: Rosberg, Hamilton (-9), Vettel (-38), Ricciardo (-44), Raikkonen (-47), Verstappen (-66).

This time we'll be in controversial Azerbaijan, where protests have taken place regarding existing human rights issues. Reminiscent of Bahrain 2014, this is nothing new to F1 as Bernie is in the money making business. The story lines for F1 abound as Nico's once strong start is beginning to level out with the remaining field coming to form. While this circuit hasn't been run before the typical street track is hard to pass and rough when it comes to lack of runoff and barriers. However the initial look seems like it'll be much more friendly than say a Monaco; it should be interesting to see who adapts to this boxy new street track first. And with every new circuit is an opportunity to be the first to claim victory. It should be another great one.

When we last left off, the Monaco Grand Prix blessed our television sets, with some surprises all around. Ricciardo's Red Bull took pole, but finished 2nd in the race due to a pit-stop that the whole team would like to forget. Verstappen, while a proven talent, still hasn't tamed this famed street track and crashed in just about every phase of the weekend, most notably the race. Alonso's McLaren finished 5th. Hams finally took a win. Sergio Perez took 3rd and was probably the happiest man on the podium, and with Hams there for the first time since clenching the 2015 Drivers Championship, that was hard to do. The purple banded ultrasoft tire was available all weekend, but the race started off wet after great weather leading up. Rosberg had brake issues and really the first spot of unreliability so far this season, much to the delight of the other teams and drivers. And as expected, Monaco's ARMCO barriers remain undefeated. With the smoke clear the Driver's Championship standings are as follows: Rosberg, Hamilton (-24), Ricciardo (-40), Raikkonen (-45), Vettel (-46), Verstappen (-68).